The richest man in Africa says crude oil prices would do Nigeria a favor if they stay lower for longer. Last week at the UN General Assembly, Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, whose main business is in cement but also holds interests in agricultural commodities and petrochemicals, said that agriculture—not crude oil—is the way forward for Nigeria, and that Africa "will become the food basket of the world." The latest economic data from Dangote's home country tend to support his view. GDP grew by 0.55 percent in the…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a draw of 761,000 barrels in United States crude oil inventories, compared to analyst expectations that inventories would build by 3.422 million barrels for the week ending September 22. Gasoline inventories built for the first time in two weeks, by 1.470 million barrels for the week ending September 22, against an expected draw of 921,000 barrels. Both WTI and Brent benchmarks fell on Tuesday, but they were both still up over $2.00 week on week. WTI hit 7-month high yesterday at the close of trade,…

Kuwait is green-lighting the development of non-associated gas fields after seven years of delays, according to a new report by S&P Global Platts, in a move that would more than double the Jurassic field's non-associated gas production which has been static since 2010. The northern areas of the Gulf emirate will supply the gas-hungry Kuwaiti energy market with new supplies once tenders to build the new fields are fulfilled, the report said. Companies bidding on the engineering, construction, and procurement pieces of the tender have until…

British performance carmaker Aston Martin's chief sees his country taking a very unrealistic approach to dealing with air pollution. The UK government's July announcement that it will be banning the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040 is "meaningless" to Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. Government officials are certainly not automotive engineers and are missing the mark, he said. "Policy makers should not try to be engineers," Palmer said. His conclusion was that the July announcement banning fossil…

September 26, 2017 A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Temenuzhka Petkova, Minister of Energy of the Republic of Bulgaria, took place today in Moscow on the margins of the meeting of the Working Group for Energy of the Russian-Bulgarian Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation. Alexey Miller Temenuzhka Petkova The meeting addressed the current and emerging issues pertaining to bilateral cooperation, with an emphasis on Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria and gas transit across Bulgaria in the context of the TurkStream project. Gazprom and Bulgarian Energy Ministry discuss cooperation matters Background In 2016, Gazprom's gas exports to Bulgaria totaled 3.18 billion cubic meters (a 2.1 per cent increase from 2015). TurkStream is the project for a transit-free export gas pipeline stretching across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and further to Turkey's border with neighboring countries. The first string of the gas pipeline is intended for ...

Oil markets took a bullish turn this week amid growing geopolitical tensions and a tightening oil market. (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge)- China and India will account for much of the growth in energy consumption for the next few decades, but the EIA says that energy consumption will also rise sharply in other parts of non-OECD Asia. - Southeast Asia in particular will see a sharp increase in consumption, with Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia standing out. - Energy consumption expands…